Contrary to popular belief, back to school shopping doesn’t have to cost a fortune!
For the last couple of weeks, emails keep dropping in my inbox telling me just how expensive it is to do your back to school shopping. From memory, I think that the amounts it’s claimed that people spend range from £200 – £500 per child which I can’t help but think is ridiculous for most schools.
I get that there will be times when you will have to buy everything which will inevitably cost more but my two haven’t cost anywhere near that much.
Here’s my top tops for saving money on your back to school preparations:
- If you haven’t already done your back to school shopping, write a list of what you need and stick to it.
- As you write your list do a check of what you already have because pens and pencils don’t automatically need replacing just because school is about to start again. I hope you’re reading this one Miss Frugal!
- Where possible, buy uniform from one of the supermarkets to save money – I always buy ours from Tesco because I think it’s great value and it always lasts really well.
- Don’t waste time and money on buying name labels to sew or iron in to clothes – just use a Sharpie!
- Think about what your stationery your children really need because I bet they don’t need half of what you buy them – Miss Frugal spent five pounds in the pound shop last week and has enough pens, pencils and rubbers to last the whole school year.
- Talking of Miss Frugal, she’s bought a plain pencil case (her choice) which was much cheaper than the others in the shop as she wants to customise it a little. Why not suggest the same and spend an afternoon together creating something bespoke.
- It won’t help you now but try and stock up through the year – I found Miss Frugal’s school skirt for less than half price a few months ago so I bought a couple in different sizes. She loves it so I’m hoping not to have to buy her a new one for a while.
- Suggest packed lunches to your children where possible, I have Master Frugal on packed lunches and Miss Frugal on school lunches and I get much better value for Master Frugal. As long as you’re not filling you’re packed lunch with pre-packed expensive goodies then a packed lunch for me will always win as the best value for money.
- If you do win with the packed lunches argument then make sure your school shopping includes a juice bottle that isn’t going to leak. Squash or water is so much better for kids than the ready made drinks and much better value too.
- Always shop around for the best price but even more so when you’re looking at bigger items like trainers and in some cases book bags. I never buy cheaper brands for things like this so for me it’s important to shop around and get the best value for money.
I’ve got a great post coming later in the week about where all of Master Frugal’s back to school things have come from so keep an eye out for that!
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